Review: Disturbed And Avenged Sevenfold - Sheffield Arena

With both rock acts making melodic rock music, it appeared a perfect fit for both bands to be on the same tour.

Disturbed singer Dave Drainman is a commanding figure, in his obligatory long black leather coat, he led the band from their version of the Simon and Garfunkel classic, Sound of Silence through to Ten Thousand Fists.

With high burning flames that shot into the air on Inside The Fire the band were in danger of upstaging tonight's headliners. With their very distinctive sound they closed a storming set with Down with the Sickness.

Avenged Sevenfold released what was for them, a concept album last autumn, The Stage. The artwork for the album features a Spaceman so it was natural for David Bowie's Space Oddity to be played before the band take to the stage.

The title track of the new album opens the show: it shows the band in a new light and is ideal to open up their songs to a new audience. Afterlife soon found the band back on old territory.

Lead singer M Shadows asks the fans if they are all from Sheffield? They all shout out the names of different places, before all uniting in calling out "Yorkshire, Yorkshire", sadly it falls on deaf ears to the American singer.

The set list covers tracks from their career right from The End of the Rapture to the new album. The catwalk from the main stage leading down into the audience was frequently used by all the band which felt like the band were part of the audience and brought everyone closer.

You can tell the difference between the older tracks and songs from the new album: there is a progression heard to best effect on Sunny Disposition from the new albu. In fact the huge Spaceman mentioned earlier even comes out from behind the back of the stage, in an Iron Maiden moment.

They do a 3 song encore and finish off with a brilliant version of Unholy Confessions, for what had been a night of melodic rock that even had influences from Sheffield's Def Leppard. Great stuff.